[glenstein]

>The brain truly is a system with terrible service availability

Taking this as a jumping off point for a way of thinking about those 'services'. It seems remarkable to me that we can initiate the attempt to think of an elephant, and then get there in one shot. We don't sort through, say, rhinos, hippos, cars, trucks. We don't seem to have to rummage.

Of course when it comes to things on the edge of our memory or the edge of our understanding, there's a lot of rummaging. But it could have been the case that everything was that way (perhaps it is that way for some animals), instead, there are some things to which we have nearly automatic, seemingly instant recall.

[alaithea]

This makes me think of how my dog reacts very quickly, of course, for hard-wired "dog" behavior things, but when I use human language and gestures to communicate something to him, such as "go find Daddy", I can figuratively see a loading spinner over his head for several seconds, until the recognition comes and he responds. I don't know what's going on in that head, but it definitely appears to be "rummaging" from the outside. Probably similar to how we feel when conversing in a foreign language we're not fluent in.

[kridsdale3]

Or when my early-riser wife talks to me about anything before I've had my coffee.